Work Is Stuck. Managers Know Where. So Why Aren’t We Starting There?

Is there a simpler, easier way for us to get there? That is the question I keep coming back to in conversations with my network. This week, one comment stopped me and has stayed with me. I think because it names the thing our industry is wrestling with, whether we want to admit it or not.

“Managers sit closest to where work gets stuck, which makes them the highest leverage people in the business and the most under-supported.” Josh Gain

You only need to look at your social feeds to see we are all dancing around that very topic. Sure, from different perspectives, but we are all walking up the same mountain, just on different routes. HR. Operations. Technology. L&D. Sales. Strategy. Projects. Consultancy. This is a global business problem. Not a training problem. Not an AI technology problem. Not just an L&D problem. It's an “us” problem, and we have all got skin in the game. So I am left wondering something.

If managers are closest to where work gets stuck, why are they not more central to the solution design?

Because if we are serious about unlocking business value and improving performance through learning, we need to get much closer to the places where friction, waste and waiting are already surfacing inside the work. Not another strategy deck. Not another five-point plan. Not another shiny tool dropped on top of already stretched teams. Inside the day-to-day. The messy middle. That is where the truth sits and the value hides. And that is where I think we need to start. With managers with us at the helm.

IKEA is one example I keep coming back to because the better story is not simply “they trained people on AI.” Ingka Group described its AI literacy work as enhancing co-worker performance through technology, with innovation and compassion going hand in hand, as it set out to change how around 30,000 co-workers and 500 leaders worked. That word matters to me. Compassion. Because people are not machines waiting for a better system prompt. They are human beings trying to do good work inside messy organisations. They are navigating pressure, uncertainty, change, customers, colleagues, systems, politics, priorities and fatigue.

If AI is going to create real value, it has to meet people there, where they are. Not above the work. Not beside the work. In the work. In the moments where people are waiting, in the decisions that keep circling, in the processes everyone complains about but no one owns, and in the places where managers already know something is not working. That is what is hitting home for me and on reflection, I don't think the solution is where we are currently looking. It's not AI on its own. It's not a new system implementation on its own. Those are things we use to do work.

But if the work itself is clunky, slow, confusing, duplicated, overloaded or unclear, then AI and systems will only help us so much. They may even add more noise.

If we want AI and technology to work for us in ways that matter, why aren't we asking managers where they are quietly holding things together? or where and why their people are doing workaround after workaround because the process is not helping them.

When hurdles are removed from the day-to-day, we get movement. Then comes speed. Then comes progress. Then comes flow. But it starts with those leading the work.

With that clarity, we're going to a much better position to know where AI can best help us inside the work. And just as importantly, where it might de-value the work if we use it in the wrong places. That is a win-win in my book. Anything else if we're honest, is assumptions made by people outside the circle. More miss than hit.

The more I listen to the voices in our industry, the more I understand that the role of L&D is not changing. It already has. Through these conversations, I am seeing a common thread. There is a good chance we are operating at the wrong end of the impact chain, and that chain is moving faster than ever. Too much of what we do still sits at the end of designing, training and telling people what we want them to know and do. But what is needed from us now, is to operate closer to the other end. To ask where the hurdles are, understand what is getting in the way, and support managers and teams to remove those blockers so performance can flow. End of story. That is the need, plain and simple. The rest is noise. Here is the controversial takeaway I never thought I would hear myself say as a learning professional of 30+ years...

The truth I'm hearing people speak about in the quiet spaces of business is that traditional L&D activity, when it cannot connect clearly to business value, is fast losing priority.

Why? Partly because of the unprecedented access we all have to content, knowledge, information and self-service. People can find answers faster than ever and at their own convenience. And, partly because the span, scale, scope and appetite of content needed exceeds what any expert L&D function or business can provide, deliver or control. So why is content still where so much of our focus sits?

That is not me saying L&D is over. Hell no. Hear me out. I think we are at the precipice of something big for L&D as an industry and these last 12 months have created some of the most valuable and active conversations I have had. Look at your feeds. Lean into the dialogue in your network. We're all saying the same thing, just differently.

The pivot from what we know L&D to be is scary. I feel that too. But as professionals, don't we also need to ask ourselves whether what we are doing now will truly help people in the future to work smarter, remove barriers, create balance and unblock delays? Everyone is tired. Everyone is under pressure. Businesses are changing, and our people are frustrated by wasted effort, unfulfilled commitments and a lack of traction. None of that is a lack of motivation or engagement. It's grief and burnout wearing a work badge.

And those quiet spaces in business are echoing something important. If L&D wants to be valuable in business, content and knowledge cannot be our drivers. I know that sounds controversial, but knowledge is no longer scarce. The scarce thing is space.

Space to think. Space to plan. Space to practise. Space to perform. Space to make sense of change. Space to remove what is getting in the way. Capability is the outcome when we get the environment right, but we talk endlessly about creating it. It's not going to happen from designing more programmes, creating more events, implementing more systems or telling or training harder. How do I know this? Because it would have worked already. It hasn't - because we're still talking about the same things, year on year. WE just dress it up differently.

This is where I think L&D needs to pivot and get inside the flow of work and partner with managers. Not around some abstract leadership model, but inside the messy middle of the day-to-day ways of working with the humans they lead. To remove friction. To remove waste. To reduce waiting, and in doing so - change mindsets and build forward momentum.

Learning for tomorrow, is creating flow. Flow leads to adoption, and adoption is where integration meets value. Human psychology tells us the absence of barriers creates space and safety, the conditions where a performance culture flourishes. It rarely comes from a pizza lunch or company merchandise.

Managers need to be at the table because they are closest to the work, and they know where those things live. Otherwise, we keep doing what we are doing now. Implementing systems. Writing papers about what we should do. Delivering programmes. Talking around the problem instead of getting close enough to see it.

And if we are honest, I think many of us know this. We just do not always say it.

McKinsey has written about middle managers being key to unlocking generative AI, noting that managers often spend less than 30% of their time on people leadership because so much of their time is absorbed by execution and administrative tasks.

That matters. Because if AI can help free some of that time, the real question becomes what managers do with it. More reporting? More meetings? More dashboards? More noise? Or do we help them use that space to notice where work is stuck and remove what is getting in the way? That is the opportunity. AI is not the magic bullet.

It is simply one way to help people do better work. And managers are those close enough to know where that help is needed.

This is why I am excited. There is so much for us to do as an industry. The opportunities ahead are ground-breaking for L&D. But our choice is whether we lean in or away from it.

The way of L&D in the past will not serve the direction needed in the future. The writing is already on the wall about that. Our challenge is simple. What are we doing about it?

Because if we help managers create better conditions for work to flow, something changes. Theatre stops. Practice changes. Performance starts. And honestly?

That is the show I would actually like to watch.